Here is what happened when a few employees of a hospital refused to get a flu shot
Good. The way it should be. If you choose to work in health care, your number 1 priority is the health of the patients.
Good news- I can get the Hep A vaccine and my rheum recommended it. They just didn’t happen to have it in clinic so I’m going to call around Friday and make sure I can get it at the local CVS or see if I have to go to a county health place or something.
Re: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/hospital-system-fires-50-over-flu-shots-heres-why/ar-BBFvRrU
The article says that only 65% of health care workers get the flu vaccine each year (and 85% when employers require it but only 43% when employers do not require it).
That is really strange. If I were a health care worker, I would want to get every possible vaccine for communicable diseases that are possibilities to show up in the hospital or clinic, since (a) I would not want to get those diseases from patients who show up sick with influenza or whatever at the hospital or clinic, and (b) I would not want to pass on such diseases to other patients. Yes, the influenza vaccine is often not that great, but it is still significantly better to have it than not when influenza viruses are floating around.
@nrdsb4 has said before that there’s actually a lot of anti-vaxx nurses. (I don’t mean to put words in your mouth so correct me if I’m wrong!)
I’m surprised to read that so many hospitals and states don’t make flu vaccines mandatory. I used to have a hospital as a customer. Even to visit the IT/corporate building, completely separate from the hospital, I had to show proof of a flu shot within the past 12 months.
One of my relatives is a dentist. He NEVER gets the flu shot. He is NOT my dentist.
When I was volunteering at our university health clinic a bit back, everyone who worked or volunteered in the building had to have the flu vaccine by a certain date or else they’d have to wear a mask full-time.
I wouldn’t say that there are a lot of anti-vaxx nurses, but there seem to be a lot of anti flu shot nurses. There are a whole lot of threads on my nursing forum complaining about mandatory flu shot policies. There are tons of posts decrying employer policies that “force me to put something in my body” every fall. Many of those don’t seem to question vaccines for other serious communicable diseases, but take issue with flu shot efficacy and safety specifically.
But, yes, there is a contingent of nurses who are absolutely anti-vaxx, still trot out the debunked autism link and other absurd claims about vaccines, etc. So absolutely, the nurse taking care of you and yours may completely disregard actual evidence based medicine and scoff at the vast amount of scientific research which shows vaccines to be safe and effective. These nurses almost never include links to any kind of evidence when they spout their claims on the forum. They are a disgrace to the profession.
My H used to work at a big hospital that mandated flu shots for all employees. You got a kind of holographic sticker on your work ID that you had to show to get in the building. But visitors, vendors, etc.? I don’t think they had the requirement. Really impressed with your story @anomander!
How much of this is due to belief that “the flu” is not particularly serious, because people generally tend to call all kinds of much less severe sicknesses “the flu”?
A freaking nurse should know the difference between the flu and a cold…
I’m a teacher, and I (and my family) get the flu shot every year. I wish they made it easier to do so, because it’s so hard to get time off at the specific (always during the day) clinics we have around here. I am jealous of my doctor friend who says that the shots come to her in her office or the hospital cafeteria. They’ve recently opened up the flu clinics in the town where I teach, to allow teachers to go to those (but ironically those are out of school hours 
).
Are there no cvs or Walgreens or anything like that around?
Well there are, but my own kids are still young enough that they can’t do that and so it ends up being more convenient for us all to go to the actual doctor. (Otherwise I have two extra trips, even if one could be off hours.) Some years I have gone to the drugstore near our house but my husband claims the shot there is more painful (I think he’s right - it’s possible they use a smaller needle in a place where they’re also doing elementary-aged kids).
We found that the regular CVS stores won’t vaccinate anyone under 18, but the CVS Minute Clinics will administer them to anyone over 18 months. Because we had insurance it was free to us and even when I used to have to pay $20 I preferred it to waiting half the day in the line for the flu clinic at our doctor’s office or waiting in a room full of sick people to get it done as a private doctor’s appointment…
I will look into that! The other option is that there are some city clinics that my kids may just have aged into…
I have a friend who is an ER doctor Every year, she complains about having to get the flu shot and she literally doesn’t get it until the day before they have to start wearing masks if they don’t get it. She said patients often refused to be treated by her when she used to do the mask thing. I had to laugh because she’s a shrink. I told her that the patients who refused to be treated by a non-vaccinated doctor are probably sane, in my opinion, and that should make her diagnosis easier. She was not amused. I told her that I think that the hospital that fired the people who refused to take the flu was right. If I recall correctly, the people could have sought a medical or religious exemption if applicable.
My H refused to get the shot. I told him that I will not use a single vacation day to stay home and take care of him.
New study says even virgins get HPV: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29165581
Not that this is news, but it is yet another piece of evidence for why you should get your HPV shot early regardless of sex/gender.
This is good news about the HPV vaccine.
Measles outbreak to worry about if you’ve traveled through O’Hare airport on January 10th.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/01/14/measles-ohare-airport/